Ray Carney's observations about academic freedom of expression, constraints on course offerings, the censorship of faculty publications, and bureaucratic retaliation against independent-minded faculty members at Boston University. Prof. Carney reflects on the deleterious effect of corporate values in the promotion, pay, and support system, on market pressures on the life of the mind and, above all, on impositions of "pedagogical correctness" in course offerings and student evaluation methods.

Friday, May 31, 2013

MORE TO COME.... MUCH MORE TO COME.....

"I have been told what I can and cannot say
in class; what I can and cannot say when I give interviews to the press; and
what I can and cannot say when I send emails to my students. I have had my
faculty web site shut down, my research funding cancelled, and my pay docked for publishing views on film education that university
administrators disagreed with. I have been screamed at, called
names, and been the subject of almost a decade of vicious personal
attacks when I have expressed opinions that my
program Director, Chairman, or Dean have disagreed with. Welcome to
Boston
University!"
—
Professor Ray Carney

* * *

“Several years after my faculty web
site was abolished for publishing things BU administrators disagreed with, and a
short time after I had been told by my Dean what I was and was not allowed to say
in my classes or to write my students in emails, my department Chairman wrote
me a memo telling me I was not to talk about the BU situation with
reporters or other members of the media when I gave interviews. I almost
laughed out loud when I read it. Think about it. He was writing me a memo censoring
my mention of the censorship policy—even as he and other BU administrators categorically
denied that there was a censorship policy. My discussion of the censorship I
had experienced was being censored! Things had gone completely through the
looking glass. I had become a character in Alice
in Wonderland.” — Professor Ray Carney

* * *

“The students are the real losers.
They are being cheated by the bullying, monitoring, and muzzling of faculty
expression at BU, and by corruption in the faculty evaluation, promotion, and
pay system, and by codes of "pedagogical correctness" that control both what and howteachers are allowed to teach. They are being defrauded when principled and courageous faculty
leave or are forced out, and they end up with faculty who accept monitoring and
control of what they say, write, and teach in the classroom, and who are rewarded for gaming the teaching,
evaluation, promotion, and pay systems.” — Professor Ray Carney

* * *

Academic freedom is the
indispensable quality of institutions of higher education. As the American
Association of University Professors core policy statement argues, "institutions
of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the
interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The
common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition."
—The American Association of University
Professors

* * *

“Our
Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of
transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That
freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not
tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.”—The U.S. Supreme Court in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385
U.S. 589 (1967)

Please
click on the menu items to the right to read an account of Ray Carney’s
experiences at Boston University. The posting order is the recommended reading order--beginning with the March 2013 postings.

MORE TO COME! MUCH MORE TO COME!Don't touch that dial! Stay tuned......

Photo of Ray Carney taken at the premiere screening of the first
version of Shadows at the Rotterdam Film Festival by Anke Teunissen. Copyrighted.
May not be used without permission.

Please
note: Since
Boston University administrators claim the right to read faculty and
student
emails sent through the university system (and since the Dean of the
College of
Communication has, in fact, read, commented on, and distributed copies
of personal emails Ray Carney has written and received), Ray Carney
highly
recommends that anyone writing him who desires confidentiality not use
the B.U.
email system. He may be reached at his gmail.com account via the name:
raycarney1.

A view from the Inside of an American University--Struggling to Defend Academic Freedom

College of Communication, 640 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, United States

Prof. Ray Carney has been working to reform Boston University's policies to censor faculty speech, publications, and teaching methods for more than 10 years. In response, he has experienced a variety of retaliatory punishments from BU administrators at all levels, but says he is "fighting the good fight, for the soul of the institution I have given the best (and worst) years of my career to—and for the good of future faculty members and students, who deserve to function in an environment in which a wide range of opinions can be expressed without fear of bureaucratic, financial, and personal retaliation." His faculty web site has been officially censored and banned by the Boston University College of Communication Dean and University Provost; he has been prevented from teaching courses in the film major; and has been punished financially and bureaucratically for expressing views about the function of education that Boston University administrators have disagreed with. Prof. Carney is the author or editor of more than fifteen books and 100 essays translated into more than 10 languages and is a world-renowned speaker on art, culture, and academic freedom of expression.